A Sherif & Sherif source page

Originally published as:

Muzafer Sherif, "A study of some social factors in perception: Chapter 4." Archives of Psychology, 1935, 27, No. 187, 1-60.

Editors' notes

It often surprises us how infrequently this paper appears in list of significant contributions to social psychology. The research described here is central to the argument that makes social psychology possible. The experiments demonstrate why it is necessary to approach human behavior — especially behaviors being observed in the laboratory — as embedded in highly structured situations that contain and constrain the scope of activity, including such internal processes as those involved in perception, processes that would seem immune to social effects.

As the introductory chapter makes clear, this is not simply a caveat for laboratory research. It is a bridge between some rather abstract studies of perception under conditions likely to obtain in day-to-day life on one hand and more detailed work on social organization of day-to-day life on the other. That bridge was built within a context that psychologists could understand.

The studies bring to the surface two important aspects of those social effects. First, group interactions can shape the responses of the participants. Second — and possibly more importantly — the shaping of those responses endures. This aspect of the study would be the focus of later research.

For those interested in playing with data, the Appendix contains several data matrices generated in the course of the study. Anyone left unsatisfied by Sherif's treatment of the data can reanalyze the work for themselves.

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A Study of Some Social Factors in Perception

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful to Professor Gardner Murphy, of Columbia University, for encouragement and wise guidance. I wish to express my gratitude to Professor G.W. Allport, of Harvard University, for his interest in my scheme and for much help.

Chapter One

I. Problem

II. A Review of Some Observations of Cultural Anthropologists

III. A Review of Some Experimental Facts in Psychology

Chapter Two

The Autokinetic Effect

It Possibilities for Our Problem

Apparatus, Techniques

Chapter Three

I. The Range Experiment

II. The Group as a Factor in Perception

III. Suggestion as a Factor in Perception

Chapter Four

Prestige-Suggestion As a Factor in Perception

Summary

Bibliography

Appendix

Notes

No notes

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